“They're
leaking braincells, if they had any to begin with.”
“I'll take it
from here. An open threat, at least, we're allowed to act on,”
Amaya said from the other end of the line.
Ulf pulled the
cord to his hands free to make sure the mic didn't fall outside his
coat. “Yes. Thank you Amaya.” He didn't ask how far she had gone
in her own manhunt. That topic was taboo.
Damn, had
forgotten how early spring comes here. This was definitely
something that was better in Japan than Sweden.
“Urufu, you
stay out of this from now on, hear me?”
“Yes Amaya. I'm
not going after armed crazies.” Should have thought about that
last summer. Damn, what a moron I was. “Don't worry.”
“You always
make me worry,” Amaya said. At the end of that sentence her voice
warmed up somewhat. “I know you're over fifty, but you're still the
son I never had.”
He had long since
stopped thinking of her as his daughter. His mother? No, but Amaya
was still his senior in ways he could never understand. Almost ten
years spent watching Japan's underbelly gave her a view of society he
just didn't have. With that realisation came a respect he had
shamefully enough not given her for over a year.
I've been so
bloody full of myself. And look where it brought me. Lost it all in
the end. He firmly shoved that whiny thought back into a recess
of his mind. Not all. I still have my friends.
But he was
breaking apart. He knew that. Working just as hard as Christina only
gave him so many hours of sanity and no more. Spring break. I'll
heal during spring break. That was less than three weeks away,
and exams should occupy his mind before that.
After he finished
his call he returned to his books. These days Ulf pushed the speed at
which he learned written Japanese. A few months more, and the results
should be obvious. Or they already were. He read books for middle
schoolers without much problems now and had already started on more
mainstream fiction.
At the moment he
went through English, or rather he went through their Japanese
translations, most of which Kareyoshi-sensei had got correct. As far
as Ulf was concerned, 'most' wasn't good enough for a teacher, but if
he wanted to boost his grades he had to answer in the wrong way that
his teacher preferred.
Fuck this
place! But with the old goat preparing for his retirement,
incompetence was acceptable as long as it went hand in hand with
authority.
Oh well, next
principal is bound to rein the moron in, or else it'll show in the
central exams. At least club hours were enough to rectify the
worst of Kareyoshi's insanities. Which also was why Ulf prepared a
lesson in history making use of all vocabulary and grammar
constructions expected to be tested during the upcoming exams.
Yukio and Kyoko
should show up any moment, and Ulf needed Kyoko, what promised to be
professional layout a few years down the line.
Ulf lined up a
few parallels between English and Japanese history. Both nations
firmly locked onto islands helped; similarities followed along
geographical reasons, and there were enough strange contrasts to
merit a conversation as well.
Flipping between
pages he gave a thankful thought to his sixteen year old eyes
surpassing the fifty year old ones he got used to. Now he could run
four minimalistic screens, swapping between them with his finger-tops
and with but a flick of thumb and middle finger he zoomed in on a
part that needed changing. Amateurs used their index finger for that;
it was needed to switch screens.
While bluetooth
still sucked, mostly due to Neanderthal interfaces, it still was the
preferred way to access secondary speakers.
Some downloads
and digital violence a few months earlier allowed Ulf to push data
over bluetooth and HDMI simultaneously. Sure, the Seattle produced
operating system tried to convince him otherwise, but in the end it
was only a matter of the size of the digital sledgehammer
applied. Anyone who didn't give up when faced with Slackware Linux
the first time learned that the hard way. Ulf's first time had been
pre commercial Internet.
The sound of
bells chiming trickled through the door had him look up from his
laptop, and Ulf grinned when Yukio and Kyoko arrived. He had a little
something to tell them before he put them to work.
“Yukio, hand me
your phone! And Kyoko's.”
Two frowning
faces gave him their phones.
Ulf quickly
downloaded his last gift from Amaya.
“OK, this is a
piece of new digital candy for the both of you. In fact I've
installed on my unit as well, and I'm having Amaya lean on Christina
as well.”
“What does it
do?” Kyoko asked and cut to the chase.
“Punch it like
this during a phone call and you'll have the Hammer of God descending
on the other side,” Ulf said and showed. He didn't say it also
immediately tried to crack its way into the offending phone. I
never knew they had that
kind of software installed in the stations.
Something rather
insidious interfaced as the legit phone-operator before handing
traffic over to legit channels. A lot easier to do with the
phone-company actively assisting with the installation. That part
Amaya knew nothing of. Ulf used her name without asking first.
Bastards!
Kyoko and Yukio are my friends! He'd screw the suckers over so
badly they'd want a new one when he was done. A promise to
Amaya to stay out of it all was worth so much and no more.
“Get back to me
from time to time to get upgrades,” Ulf said. At least partially
true. To get updated databases installed was the real reason.
Whenever that
phone went online he got more data, and every phone number,
Line-address, email-address, well, pretty much everything it
contacted on a list he had made. And everything those points
contacted, and those contacted in turn. Ulf had a data analysing tool
trimmed according to his specifications. Anything even remotely
circular contact-wise got snooped permanently. Whatever circles of
friends, relatives and contacts that arsehole had were subject to
brutal and extremely illegal surveillance.
Don't fuck
with someone who was there from the start!
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